The Advantages of Gothic Domestic Architecture; or Gothic as Essentially Functionalist

Charles L. Eastlake (1872)

In the following passage Eastlake, who writes as an especially devout disciple of John Ruskin, mentioning him approvingly whenever the subject permits, here follows the author of The Stones of Venice and The Seven Lamps of Architecture in emphasizing the essentially functionalist nature of Gothic because one can place windows, rooms, and other parts of a structure where needed and the style grows out of these requirements. — George P. Landow.

Mr. A. Salvin, [an] architect whose career was destined to be one of great success, and who, throughout his life, took a conspicuous part
in the Revival, came into public notice about this time. He built
Moreby Hall, in Yorkshire, for Mr. Henry Preston — a house presenting
no remarkable characteristics beyond the evidence which it affords of a
gradual return to the manorial Gothic of old English mansions. The
windows are square-headed, and are provided with double transoms as
well as mullions of stone. The roofs are raised — not, indeed, to the
high pitch which should properly belong to the style — but at an angle
of about 45°. Chimney shafts, instead of being kept out of sight or
arranged in symmetrical stacks at each end of the building, are allowed
to rise where they are most needed, and being designed in accordance
with the rest of the work, become picturesque features in the composition. Servants' offices, instead of being crowded at the back of the
house (an almost inevitable condition in the Palladian villa), are planned
so as to extend to the right or left in buildings of lesser height, and thus
give scale to the principal front

Scotney Castle, Sussex (1837), designed by A. Salvin.

The facility with which this kind of domestic Gothic could be
adapted to the requirements of any sort of plan, or any size of house
which the owner might require, was probably a strong plea in its
favour. Even those country squires and landed gentlemen who had
affected a taste for classic architecture, began to ask themselves whether
the dignity of a Greek portico or an Italian façade was worth the inconvenience which such features were sure to entail on the house at their
rear; whether there was not some greater advantage to be derived from
the employment of a style which was not only thoroughly English in
character but also permitted every possible caprice regarding the distribution of rooms to be freely indulged without detriment to the design. [128-29]